Review: Logitech MX Performance Mouse – It works on glass!!!

Published January 13, 2016

Another first for this blog: A product review!

For those of you who have clicked on this article, seen the length and thought “TL;DR”: This probably the best mouse I have ever owned. It is superb in pretty much every aspect. I recommend you buy this mouse now…like right now! I give it a solid 10/10 as there I simply can’t fault it… (yet).

For those of you who are curious as to why this mouse is so brilliant, would like to know my opinions on this mouse’s features, how well it works with the various productivity suites I use on a daily basis or would like to see some nice high-resolution photos: please keep reading!

I would like to state that this is a completely independent review and I do not work for Logitech. (although if you work for Logitech please get in touch, I would love to talk to your product design team!)

Anyway, I received this mouse in late November of 2015 and I have to admit I was very excited, My previous mouse, a bargain bin Microsoft device, had served me very well up until now but it was about to let out the smoke. To be quite honest, I was astounded by how well the Logitech suited my every need. It is packed with excellent features in a sleek, ergonomic (be it sightly large) case that fits perfectly in the hand providing both support and comfort for those long days at the desk.

The first thing that struck me was the neat and efficient packaging, Logitech have done well here and accomplished good protection for the product yet maintaining a relatively small-sized box of nice appearance. The lid is held down with just a magnet and all it takes is one piece of tape to cut to get the mouse out of the box. Good start!

Out of the box you immediately notice that elegant shape, highlighted by the reflective strip that curves around the top edge and back to the front of the mouse. It is a nice touch that gives the mouse that premium and professional look but is a massive fingerprint magnet. Within the first day of use this faux metal part was covered in fingerprints and was less than shiny (especially around the thumb area) to say the least!

The other side is moulded with a soft rubber like plastic giving a good grip and the formed creases feel good between the third and fourth fingers. The soft touch coating stays cool even after extensive use and maintains comfort on the mouse.

The only other thing inside the box is the USB receiver which works with Logitech’s Unifying technology which allows several compatible devices to use a single USB dongle. This is great for those who have both a wireless mouse and keyboard. The small form factor, that you really expect in a modern wireless mouse, is excellent and allows me to keep it connected to my laptop all the time. This is especially great if you, like me, travel with your laptop a lot and having to constantly unplug the dongle would certainly result in it being lost.

The mouse wheel is crammed full of features (well, for a mouse wheel). It supports 3 different, configurable buttons in the wheel itself. The left and right buttons are defaulted to forwards and backwards in your internet browser. I find this useful and so have left these options stock. The button on the top of the mouse switches the wheel between a ‘clicky’ scroll and a free spinning scroll mode. I found this feature extremely useful. When scrolling through large documents one can flick the wheel and see it smoothly scroll down through the document rapidly. The wheel itself has a grippy, ridged centre allowing precise control over the wheel.

Most importantly, the clicks are very tactile with good physical feedback and a solid click sound. I have had no issues so far with the switches in left and right mouse button and there has been no change in sound profile indicating a solid consistent construction along with good quality micro-switches.

Moving to the thumb side of the mouse we find 4 configurable buttons. My personal preference is to have the two arrow buttons as copy and paste, the zoom button as print screen and the lower thumb button left stock as ‘switch between windows’. These are hugely customisable however in the Logitech mouse software which it is recommended that you download to use with this mouse. The buttons are assignable in the software to perform different taks as I mentioned but they can also be customized to suit a particular application you are using. More specifically you can set the buttons to perform keystroke macros which I find extremely useful in my CAD software and Adobe programs. I can have the zoom button, for example, apply certain keystrokes that zooms a model to fit the view of the screen in Autodesk Inventor but have the same button select the zoom tool within Photoshop. A very neat feature!

On the bottom of the mouse there is the usual serial number mumbo jumbo but fortunately it is hidden by the battery door. There is space for the USB receiver to go in the battery compartment but this is not really necessary as the receiver can stay permanently plugged into the computer. There is a satisfyingly on/off switch which I feel is important when there is no visible light coming from the sensor (more on this in a minute)!

Now for the centre piece of this mouse. Its ‘Darkfield’ sensor technology. Both optical and traditional laser mice use irregularities on the surface to track the direction and speed of the mouse movements as they move around. Therefore, traditional mice do not perform well on shiny, very smooth or reflective surfaces. This is where the ‘Darkfield’ technology that Logitech has implemented in this mouse really shines (ironically!). ‘Darkfield’ uses the smallest possible detail to create a micro-road map of the surface so you get better precision on more surfaces, even glass. Yes… even glass!

I had to try this out. Fortunately, not long after getting the mouse I had a meeting to attend in which I required my computer and mouse. This meeting took place on a large glass conference table. I felt quite smug watching the other people unpacking their laptops and scrambling for something to use as a mouse-pad once they figured out their mice couldn’t cope with the glass! It was challenging to contain my glee when my colleagues noticed I was having no problem tracking my mouse across the clear surface.

In summary, I can not recommend this mouse enough. It is an extremely well-built, elegant and high performing accessory which is now my ‘go-to’ whenever I am asked for a hardware recommendation!